Electrocatalysts play important roles in renewable energy applications. However, in most electrochemical processes, the state-of-the-art catalysts are precious metal based materials, limiting their applications in large scale. Recently, single metal sites embedded into the nitrogen doped carbon materials have been demonstrated as superior electrocatalysts. However, constructing abundant single metal sites without aggregation of metal species during the high temperature processing is still a challenge.<br/> <br/>Herein, we present a facile method to synthesize prevalent single metal site electrocatalysts by employing metal phthalocyanine (MePc) derivatives as metal precursors. MePc molecules are encapsulated in the zeolitic imidazolate frameworks (ZIFs) and the subsequent pyrolysis yields the Me-N/C catalysts. It is found that functional groups on Pc can facilitate the introduction of MePc molecules into ZIFs and formation of active sites in the carboneous network, thus affording higher catalytic activities. The FePc derived catalyst exhibits high activities for oxygen reduction reaction with a half-wave potential of 0.910 and 0.811 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode in alkaline and acidic conditions. It also exhibits good activity and high selectivity for electroreduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide. Our study highlights that MePcs or other analogues in the metal organic frameworks are efficient precursors to construct single metal site catalysts for electrochemical energy conversion.

Metal phthalocyanines to construct advanced single metal site electrocatalysts

2019 Spring National Meeting

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